glennw@aluxz.UUCP (wesley) (09/09/85)
I need some advice on Project Managers for the MS-DOS
world. I have had one recommendation for SuperProject (I
believe from Sorcim), but I would like some additional
opinions.
Thanks in advance.
Glenn Wesley
aluxz!glennw or
aluxz!pissa!glenndavid@ecrhub.UUCP (David M. Haynes) (09/11/85)
> I need some advice on Project Managers for the MS-DOS > world. I have had one recommendation for SuperProject (I > believe from Sorcim), but I would like some additional > opinions. > Thanks in advance. > Glenn Wesley > Choosing the right Project Management software depends upon your current philosophy of project management. Do you like % complete indicators? Are you monitoring costs as well as work? Do you like Gannt Charts? Flow Diagrams? Status sheets? Do you envision a lot of parallelism in the task outline? Just a few things to think about. However (cough) I would recommend that you look at the Harvard Project Manager and the other one from Harvard who's name escapes me at the moment. Also, Milestone from Digital Research is favoured by some managers I know. If your needs are simple, a good project management system can be coded into Framework (see PC World September 1985 Official Business guide Page 214). [The usual discalaimers about not being a representative of any Software Company] -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- David M. Haynes Exegetics Inc. ..!utzoo!ecrhub!david Exegetics Inc. is a legal convience and does not care what I have to say. Emerald City Research Inc. is very kind to let me use their machine, but in no way is even remotely responsible for the stuff I post.
forbus@uiucdcsp.Uiuc.ARPA (09/13/85)
I just bought Sorcim's Super Project, and it's a real winner. Very easy to use, produces several different types of reports and charts, and in general has done just what I expected it to do. Even though everything would be prettier with color, Sorcim took care to make B&W graphics work right as well. And of course, Sorcim is a civilized company so it is not copy-protected. I recommend it most highly. Ken Forbus Department of Computer Science University of Illinois Urbana, IL, 61801
patrick@ISM780.UUCP (09/20/85)
I've used the Sorcim product (should be using it now to prepare a project
plan for tomorrow, but I got distracted), and am not entirely satisfied.
It's reasonably powerful, and a great advance over pencil and paper, but
I have some criticisms:
The user-interface isn't particularly easy to use; it is based on
pull-down menus, but everything seems to take 3 times as many
(non-intuitive) keystrokes as it should. With 1-2-3 you can really zip
through the command sequences once you get to know them - Supercalc
doesn't allow you to enter the first character of a command in order to
start it up, but instead you must use space or backspace to select the
menu, F9 to display it, then cursor up or down to choose your option.
The alternative is to remember that ALT-M means "Increase Task Delay",
and CTRL-F5 means "Make Lead Resource" - impossible.
The reporting facilities are limited. The latest release (1.1) has added
some simple reports, but they really expect you to purchase "Supercalc",
(a Sorcim spreadsheet), save your data in Supercalc format, and use the
spreadsheet to produce your reports. I'm told that there are problems in
transferring dates to Supercalc (Superproject uses some bizarre internal
format which is incompatible with Supercalc) but I haven't got this far
myself. It is theoretically possible to save data in a format readable
by 1-2-3 (they provide a data-format conversion program), but I'd much
rather have more powerful built-in reporting capabilities.
Sometimes you must manually make a change which could quite simply be
performed by the software. For example, the Resource Details screen
contains two fields: "billable hours" and "hours". These are almost
always identical (if I have someone work on a project for 8 hours a day,
and I'm costing their time, I would fill in 8 for each field). Yet if I
decide to reduce the allocation to 6 hours/day, I must change each field
to 6. The software should present me with the default (change the other
field), and let me override it on the rare occasion that this is
necessary. Another example: if I modify something in a sub-project, I
must remember to "zoom out" to the higher-level project and select an
"update" option from the Command menu. If I don't do this, the changes
will not be reflected in the master project, despite the fact that the
software knows they're linked.
Perhaps my biggest criticism is that it's difficult to construct a model
in which people are shared between projects. Unless I create a pseudo-
master-project ("my work"), and define all projects as sub-projects of
this, each one headed by a pseudo-resource ("my group") who works zero
hours/day, there's no way to generate a report showing the projects Joe
Programmer is assigned to, nor for the software to warn me that I've
currently allocated 25 hours of his time each day. This is clumsy, to
say the least, and even so the reporting capabilities are limited.
What's needed is a mechanism to "link" projects together, without
defining one as a sub-project of the other.
Conclusions: Much better than nothing. Produces nice PERT and GANTT
charts. Limited reporting capability. Clumsy user-interface.
Reasonably fast. Latest release comes bundled with "Sideways" for
printing loooooong charts. Good for simple modelling in which all
resources are allocated to a single project, but clumsy otherwise. A
sound product which will probably mature into a really useful tool, but
which still shows the signs of its newness.
There's probably something better out there. Anyone care to tell me what
it is?
Patrick Curran
INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.
decvax!cca!ima!patrick
{uscvax|ucla-vax|vortex}!ism780!patrickpapke@dicomed.UUCP (Kurt Papke) (09/25/85)
In article <31300009@ISM780.UUCP> patrick@ISM780.UUCP writes: > >I've used the Sorcim product (should be using it now to prepare a project >plan for tomorrow, but I got distracted), and am not entirely satisfied. > >The user-interface isn't particularly easy to use; it is based on >pull-down menus, but everything seems to take 3 times as many >(non-intuitive) keystrokes as it should. With 1-2-3 you can really zip >through the command sequences once you get to know them - Supercalc The HTPM product (Harvard Total Project Manager) has a 1-2-3 style interface. The main difference being that HTPM allows non-unique first character command names, you keep typing til its unique. > >The reporting facilities are limited. The latest release (1.1) has added >some simple reports, but they really expect you to purchase "Supercalc", >(a Sorcim spreadsheet), save your data in Supercalc format, and use the >spreadsheet to produce your reports. I'm told that there are problems in >transferring dates to Supercalc (Superproject uses some bizarre internal >format which is incompatible with Supercalc) but I haven't got this far >myself. It is theoretically possible to save data in a format readable >by 1-2-3 (they provide a data-format conversion program), but I'd much >rather have more powerful built-in reporting capabilities. HTPM stores its projects in 1-2-3 ".wks" format. This implies that the project files can be read directly from 1-2-3 with no conversion. The only problem with this concept is that the files are incredibly cryptic -- its tough to come up with macros that do meaningful reports in a finite amount of time. > >must remember to "zoom out" to the higher-level project and select an >"update" option from the Command menu. If I don't do this, the changes >will not be reflected in the master project, despite the fact that the >software knows they're linked. > >Perhaps my biggest criticism is that it's difficult to construct a model HTPM automatically updates "parent" projects when the parent project is accessed. There is no need for an explicit "update" option. >in which people are shared between projects. Unless I create a pseudo- >master-project ("my work"), and define all projects as sub-projects of >this, each one headed by a pseudo-resource ("my group") who works zero >hours/day, there's no way to generate a report showing the projects Joe >Programmer is assigned to, nor for the software to warn me that I've >currently allocated 25 hours of his time each day. This is clumsy, to HTPM allows partial resources (such as people) to be allocated to any number of projects. There are reports that identify which projects require a given resource and overall resource usage. I use a similar "master project" technique to get HTPM to give me departmental manpower loading charts. This master project has each development project in my department as a concurrent subproject. Looking at the resources required by the "master" project gives me departmental loading figures. > >Conclusions: Much better than nothing. Produces nice PERT and GANTT >charts. Limited reporting capability. Clumsy user-interface. >Reasonably fast. Latest release comes bundled with "Sideways" for >printing loooooong charts. Good for simple modelling in which all >resources are allocated to a single project, but clumsy otherwise. A HTPM has a "sideways" capability built right into the report writer, although it is incredibly slow. >sound product which will probably mature into a really useful tool, but >which still shows the signs of its newness. > >There's probably something better out there. Anyone care to tell me what >it is? > >Patrick Curran > >INTERACTIVE Systems Corp. > >decvax!cca!ima!patrick >{uscvax|ucla-vax|vortex}!ism780!patrick The Software Digest (tm) Ratings Newsletter this month has an updated reviews of Project Management packages. This has a fair amount of data on the various packages. Oddly enough, the one they came up with as the "best" one is Microsoft (tm) Project, which I think is a piece of trash. I bought it a year ago with high hopes and found it was ok for "toy" projects, but useless for anything substantial. I began using the Harvard Project Manger a couple of years ago for a 2-year development project (300 tasks in the Pert chart) and it worked out well except it couldn't handle resources. I started using HTPM about 5 months ago with high hopes. It has an excellent resource tracker. The main problems with it are: o It is slow. The first program was in assembly language and was very responsive to the keyboard. The new version is in C, and is a dog. o It is full of bugs. It crashes on a regular basis. o It is hard to use. It takes a typical project manager several days to come up to speed on it. Nonetheless I thought HTPM got a raw deal in the Software Digest rating. If you look at the "versatility" breakdown (read usability on real projects!) HTPM is the only reasonably priced product that does the job. Kurt "I am in no way connected with Harvard Software. In fact I have trouble being connected to much of anything these days."